


Honor and Evidence

by KtheG



Series: Two Celestial's and a Human [5]
Category: Warrior Nun (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, soft, some discussion of hard topics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:21:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26344030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KtheG/pseuds/KtheG
Summary: Beatrice, Ava, and Lilith are very different, yet they come together to heal
Relationships: Sister Beatrice/Ava Silva, Sister Beatrice/Sister Lilith (Warrior Nun), Sister Beatrice/Sister Lilith/Ava Silva, Sister Lilith/Ava Silva
Series: Two Celestial's and a Human [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1872385
Comments: 7
Kudos: 78





	Honor and Evidence

**Author's Note:**

> So this was kind of cathartic for me to write, and it turned into this spill of words on our three girls. More of a character study than anything else I think, but a study of how the three of them are together if that makes sense.

Ava, despite her ability to remember how to walk and move her body, seems to always be moving. This comes as a surprise to exactly none of the members of the OCS, but she occasionally gets scolded by Mother Superion when her fidgeting gets too loud. Recently, Ava has been feeling everything, from the rough walls of Cat’s Cradle to the smoothness of the fabric of Beatrice’s habit. Ava rubs her feet together at night, relishing in the ability to _feel_ her feet brushing against each other, or occasionally against Beatrice’s and Lilith’s legs, just feeling the friction created by the action. She runs her hands over the callouses on Lilith’s palms when they intertwine their fingers while walking around town. But the one sensation Ava never seems to come to terms with is the difference between scarred skin and the smooth skin on her body.

No matter how many times she sees it, the Halo scar on her back looks out of place. She may have come to terms with it being there, but it’s… too neat. The other scars on her body from the car accident are jagged and thick, whereas the Halo scar is almost smooth but not quite and it’s a perfect circle. She spends what is probably way too long looking at it in the mirror, trying to figure out how it contributes to her body (aside from it _giving her a body to inhabit_ ) and she gets caught most evenings by Beatrice or Lilith. Beatrice and Lilith, who have battle worn hands, scars full of honor (there are a few Lilith has from when she was a kid that are attached to completely embarrassing stories), and their scars were earned.

Ava’s scars were given to her by a drunk driver when she was seven and by a celestial piece of metal as a last resort. She hasn’t _earned_ any of her stories, and that thought sticks in her brain for days on end. She’ll run her fingers over the scar on her shin where the doctors had to put in a plate and screws on the bone in order for it to mend, she brushes her fingers over the scars on her abdomen, surgically accurate and lined by staple marks from fixing internal damage (she assumes, she was never told), she sees the puckered pink skin on her arms from glass shards and the list goes on. But the Halo scar is totally different, and Ava isn’t sure what to make of it.

If you asked Beatrice and Lilith, they would tell you that Ava was comfortable in her body, but that she hid from them sometimes. Lilith could point you to the small signs, the body language ticks that let them know when their girlfriend was feeling self-conscious about something physical, and Beatrice could highlight all of the actions Ava did when she was feeling intellectually left out. Ava may be loud and annoying, but they knew it was all a cover up, a mask.

So when Ava would disappear at night, after her shower but before they all rolled into bed together, Lilith and Beatrice knew their girl was going too far into her brain. They’d set out in their pajamas, wandering the halls of Cat’s Cradle, looking for Ava but taking their time, knowing that Ava would come to them with her feelings when she was ready. Their job on these nights was to listen, never to push, and so if they found Ava before she found them, they would just wrap her in her favorite blanket and bring her back to their room, content to wait for another night for an explanation.

On this particular night, Ava hadn’t come out of the bathroom, and Lilith was itching to shower, so she was a little peeved when she went to the door and could still hear the water running. She knocked on the door, expecting an answer from Ava, but when nothing came, she grew concerned. The door was unlocked, and Lilith looked over her shoulder at Beatrice, who was nose deep into her most recent book purchase.

“Ava, are you okay in there?” Lilith asked, hoping that the other girl hadn’t fallen asleep in the shower again. (It was a problem, she worked so hard to prove herself every day, she often depleted the Halo by the time the sun set and the last training bell rang.) At Lilith’s inquiry, Beatrice put her book down on the side table and crossed the room to stand by Lilith at the door. After no response came, Beatrice tried her hand at getting an answer from Ava, but when none came, the two women looked at each other with concern. Together, they pushed the door open and stepped into the bathroom and saw Ava sitting on the shower floor, looking nothing, but her fingers running over the scar on her leg.

“Ava, darling, are you okay?” Beatrice asks softly, afraid of startling their girlfriend. Ava doesn’t seem to hear her, and Beatrice notices the glassy look in her eyes. The sounds of Lilith undressing behind her are quiet, but not so quiet that Ava shouldn’t be able to miss them. As it is, though, when Lilith climbs into the shower and sits down behind Ava, Ava still jumps.

“Sh, it’s okay.” Lilith just wraps her arms around Ava, on hand resting on the girls chest and the other joining Ava’s hand on her leg. Ava hasn’t consciously moved, but she leans back into Lilith almost on instinct, drawn in by the comfort of her girlfriend. Beatrice watches from the outside, ready to jump in if needed, but she’s content to let her girls share this experience more closely; she knows they have different ways of healing each other, and sometimes, Ava needs what she calls the “chill of hell” to bring her back to earth.

(“Beatrice, you’re great and all, but Lilith just has this… _leftover chill_ that balances out the heat I feel. It doesn’t mean I love you less, I love you both. Fuck this doesn’t sound great for me, but fuck I love you both, but you both satisfy different parts of my fucking messed up brain.” Ava had worked herself into a panic when trying to describe to Beatrice why she had run to Lilith following a nightmare one night. The night that brought them together in finality. Ava had woken up shaking, the Halo burning bright under her skin. Beatrice had been so afraid, unable to reach Ava. But Ava had run off to Lilith, and Beatrice followed, curious as to what Lilith could do that she couldn’t. So when she found Ava curled up in Lilith’s arms, Lilith running her hands over Ava’s back, tracing the Halo under her skin? Beatrice had been confused to say the least.)

And so Beatrice knew that there were days when Ava’s skin burned, felt like it was on fire and her touch was too much. Usually, those were the days where they caught Ava as she is now, in the freezing cold shower, reminding herself she was _here_ and not in some sick bed unable to move. The first time Beatrice had found Ava like this, she had been terrified. Ava wasn’t one to seem insecure about her body, grateful to have one in the first place, to be able to move, to walk. She was always moving, running her hands along whatever happened to be closest, so to see Ava sitting still, making no move, made Beatrice’s spine tingle with fear. It took Beatrice (and Lilith, once she had become a permanent fixture in their lives (and that doesn’t even begin to cover all the other times the two had helped ground each other on this plane)) several weeks to figure out how to help Ava, how to reassure her that her body was hers.

She was no stranger to her body (she had to know it so intimately in order to know she didn’t like the way her body reacted to things) but she could understand Ava’s fascination with the changes in texture on her skin. These scars that proved she was here, had survived, made it to fight another day. Beatrice often fell asleep to Ava running her hands over her skin, particularly the scar she has on her forearm that came from blocking a knife aimed at Ava (“Beatrice how could you be so reckless? I have the _Halo_. I can heal!” Ava was yelling at her as she tried to stem the bleeding. The gash was long and deep, the knife had been extra sharp. Luckily it wouldn’t leave too much damage (sharp weapons left clean lines) and all that was left was a long silver line on her arm).

But for Beatrice and Lilith, their bodies were weapons, tools for the greater good. Ava always felt they had earned their scars, and it was up to Lilith and Beatrice to remind Ava that she had earned hers too. She had survived the accident that killed her mother, and her scars were proof of that (“but maybe I shouldn’t have, look at how many there are!”), she was worthy of the Halo (“it’s still in you Ava, that means it chose you”).

Which brings Beatrice back to the bathroom, watching her girlfriends comfort each other. The water has been turned off, so Beatrice tosses a towel at Lilith, hoping that the fluffy sensation will help draw Ava out of her daze. (When Lilith and Beatrice had first noticed Ava’s fascination with their skin, it was a little alarming, but after Ava explained how it was always something she could touch, a constant source of sensory input (especially when she traced her fingers along the pock marks against their skin) they settled down and just let their girlfriend trace her fingers along their arms).

The sensory input is so important to Ava, and Lilith and Bea are so willing to give it to her, that Beatrice no longer flinches every time Ava runs a hand over the scars on her wrist, Lilith doesn’t hesitate putting her head in Ava’s lap so her girlfriend can run her hands through her hair. Fluffy towels were not something Beatrice wanted, but after she saw Ava curled up in one, gently running her cheek against the grain? She couldn’t stop herself. So now they had fluffy towels, fluffy blankets, fluffy carpets, and fluffy sweatshirts. But still, the most important feeling, they discovered, was the warmth of their bodies. And so Ava often found herself in a sandwich of her girlfriends, in the car, in bed, in the shower. But occasionally, she and Lilith would get Beatrice in the middle, and Ava would run her hands over Bea’s back, under her shirt, feeling out all the little imperfections that Beatrice hated (“they were moments of weakness”) but Ava loves because it’s evidence Beatrice is alive (“you saved someone because of this. That’s not weakness”). Or when they get Lilith in the middle, and Ava intertwines their hands, arm resting on Lilith’s waist and she can feel the healed scrapes on her knuckles (“you survived a trip to Hell, Lils. You deserve to know you’re alive, and that’s what this tells you”).

Ava has a very different relationship with her body than she has with the bodies of her girlfriends. She keeps coming back to the idea of honor. That her life isn’t honorable because she couldn’t live it for 12 years, because she was brought back to life by a piece of celestial metal gifted to humanity by a thief. (“If Adriel stole it, and he’s a thief, and gives it to Areala, why is it sacred? It’s stolen. It’s like using stolen money to pay for someone else’s meal.”)

Just knowing even a fraction of what goes on in Ava’s mind allows her girlfriends to sit with her on the shower floor, under the cold spray of water, and bring her back to herself is a gift that none of them take for granted. That’s why Lilith is content to put pressure on the scar on Ava’s leg, run her fingers the length of the shin bone underneath her finger tips, feel the slight bumps of the screws and the plate, or run her fingers along the jagged marks of old wounds on Beatrice’s back from when she went through a wall. The distinct separation between smooth and rough reminds them all that they’re still here, healing together.

And that’s what this is about, ultimately. Healing together. They may not be actively going out on missions anymore, thank the Lord Adriel has been returned to Hell, but they still have to work with the OCS. And maybe that’s the hardest part, is the fact that despite all they’ve endured, Ava still needs the Halo, relies on it for her very life, and Lilith has been to Hell and back and now has the extra abilities. None of them are the same people they were a few years ago, they have all these experiences that no normal human (“I’m no _human_ anymore Bea! I am some half-demon Hell being” Lilith had sobbed one night when she was in the middle. “You’ll always be human to us, Lilith”) will ever know about, and it caused problems in public. The backfire of a motorcycle, the screeching of tires (“I know I was seven when it happened, but the thought of driving, of being in a car, it – it’s terrifying. I could lose you guys so easily”), the echo of fireworks sounding like gunshots.

So they hold each other, in the shower, on the floor, in bed. They heal together, soft touches, fluffy blankets, warm cups of tea. And they live life together, on missions, in the library, as lovers.

When Beatrice and Lilith manage to get Ava into her pajamas and tucked into the covers, she curls into Bea’s side, letting Lilith get her own shower in. Ava’s fingers instinctively find the skin of Beatrice’s stomach and her fingers start moving, reminding herself that she can feel (that she can feel her girlfriend beneath her) and that Beatrice is alive.

Ava’s so tired she almost falls asleep before Lilith makes it back to bed, her adrenaline finally running out now that she’s grounded herself in the feelings around her, but she fights it, manages to stay awake until she feels Lilith’s arms cradle around her, hold her tight. The pressure on her chest is enough for Ava to finally, fully relax into her exhaustion and she succumbs to sleep, her fingers still twitching against Beatrice’s side.

Beatrice turns under Ava’s sleep-slackened grip and reaches across her smaller girlfriends body to brush her fingers across Lilith’s cheek. Lilith meets her eyes over Ava’s head and gives a small smile, answering the unasked question.

“She’s still pretty hot, I think the Halo is on high alert.” Lilith whispers, always more concerned with her smallest lover than herself.

“But we’ll be here, holding her and figuring it out together,” Beatrice’s voice is a quiet reassurance. She moves her hand from Lilith’s face to her neck, feeling the cooler skin under her palm heat up in response. “And you? Are you feeling the usual?”

Lilith nods, still feeling the chill of her other side in response to the Halo’s burn. “She’ll keep me warm, and you’ll keep us safe.”

There’s no room for argument in Lilith’s words, she knows them to be true with all her being, and Beatrice knows her girls are safest where they are. She leans over Ava to place a delicate kiss to Lilith’s lips before settling down for sleep herself. Ava’s hand on her stomach has found her heart, and Lilith brings one hand to rest on top of Ava’s, centering herself in Beatrice’s steady breathing and slow heartbeat.


End file.
